


Stories and Stardust

by Atlas_M_33



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Fluff, M/M, POV Outsider, Pining Shiro (Voltron), Post-Season/Series 07, Sentient Atlas (Voltron), Sentient Voltron Lions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-31
Updated: 2020-12-31
Packaged: 2021-03-10 22:06:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,599
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28460622
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Atlas_M_33/pseuds/Atlas_M_33
Summary: The Atlas wakes up, and one of the first things she learns is that Shiro loves Keith.The next thing she learns is that humans are idiots.
Relationships: Atlas & Shiro (Voltron), Keith/Shiro (Voltron)
Comments: 10
Kudos: 122





	Stories and Stardust

**Author's Note:**

> This is a (very nearly late!) Secret Santa gift for Akemichan of the Sheith Empire Discord. They like outsider POV and pining Shiro, so I did my best to deliver. Thank you to Mikado for this opportunity to stretch my Sheith for the first time in ages, you did an amazing job running this event.
> 
> Thank you for reading, please enjoy!!

Voltron goes down, again and again, and then Voltron stays down and Keith is in there but Shiro can’t worry about that because the Atlas is taking damage but-

_ -a hum that fills his mind and the entire bridge washed in silver- _

-everyone’s yelling at him, asking for orders, but he wasn’t even a captain until ten minutes ago and Keith and the Paladins are down and-

_ -the same hum but louder, wrapping his mind in warmth and- _

“Get me higher. Put us in the upper-atmosphere.”

“Shiro, the Paladins!”

“I’m working on it! Sam, give me all the power we’ve got!”

He closes his eyes and-

She-

-wakes up. It’s quite loud in those first few moments. They stretch into an eternity, her sensors processing data in ways they weren’t meant to before she changed them. She listens again, for the voice that had been calling and-

There it is! It’s him, the one on the bridge that shines like the metal that makes up her hull. She recognizes him from the vague, barely there way that she heard things Before, but she  _ understands  _ him now, can feel something badawfulnodontlikeit swirling through him into her as he pleads nononononohelpPLEASE-

So she wakes up, and she answers, but she’s still stretching, trying to learn the ways that her new form can move and see and fight, and she isn’t fast enough. The lights that are falling from the sky- the Lions, her Captain whispers, horror in every thought- _the Lions_ are falling and she can feel the way that her Captain’s heart is breaking, can feel the way his eyes follow the streak of purple.

It hits the ground in the desert off her starboard side, and she doesn’t wait for an order to start moving towards the crater.

The next few days are a flurry of activity that she watches from behind her Captain’s eyes. Her home, the Garrison, is a flurry of activity as rebels and refugees alike flood into the area, and soon enough there’s something like a town forming around it, sprawling out into the desert. Shiro’s days are non stop until late at night when she sees him slow, sees him stop, sees him curled at the bedside of a slender, dark haired man that’s more bruises and bandages than anything else. 

_ Keith, _ her Captain tells her, pushing his hair out of his face with a soft touch.  _ His name is Keith, and he’s Everything. _

Inside her hangar where the Lions are recovering, the one called Black agrees.

The days continue to pass, and the other little Lions-  _ Paladins,  _ Shiro tells her, with a laugh in his not-really voice- begin to wake. 

Keith does not. 

Between his duties to the Garrison and spending time with the other Paladins, Shiro still spends every moment that he can at Keith’s bedside, and when he’s there the people of the Garrison know better than to bother him with work. Instead he sits with Kosmo’s head in his lap, and she nudges at him until he talks to her. 

He talks to her about space and the Galra and the Blade. He talks about the Rebels and his crew and how amazing he thinks she is. And, more than anything else, he talks to her about Keith.

Nudge.

_ “One time we took his dad’s bike to the next town over just because Keith was craving burgers.” _

Nudge.

_ “We used to team up to pull pranks on the other Paladins when we were on the Castle, because we were always together and no one ever suspected a thing.” _

Nudge.

_ “I’ve known Keith for years but I have no idea why he knows how to fight with a sword.” _

It’s been a week and Keith still isn’t awake. Shiro sits at his bedside, a tablet full of forms that need his signature at his side but powered down, a space wolf nearly as big as he is trying to prove he’s still a lap dog. In the back of his mind his connection to the Atlas hums warmly, a new constant in his life that’s shown no sign of fading since the moment it snapped into being as she first transformed. 

The bond warms and stretches, like she can tell his thoughts have turned to her, reaching like she’s trying to grab his attention without being obvious about it. The thoughts she drifts to him down their connection rarely come in the form of complete sentences, usually taking the shape of pictures or feelings or just enough words strung together to get the point across.  _ More efficient, _ she says to him, and he hums in response. Instead of pulling back though, her mind continues to hover just next to his, buzzing with anticipation like she wants something but she’s not sure how to ask. He feels a smile spread across his face. “Storytime?” 

_ Yesyesyesyes _

“Any requests?” A moment of silence, and then-

_ Keith? _

“Okay. A story about Keith.” His smile only gets wider as he settles on what story to tell her, and Kosmo, half draped over his lap, perks at the sound of Keith’s name.

Her joy is infectious, and as she settles in, Shiro begins to speak. 

“I met Keith when he stole my car.”

_ Story? _

“One time Keith and Matt broke into the kitchen after hours so they could steal a whole bucket of mac & cheese for my birthday.”

_ Story? _

“The first time we stuck onto the roof was the night of Keith’s 17th birthday, and both of us cried when the stars came out.”

_ Story? _

“Have I told you about the first time Keith and I met the Blades?”

Atlas was the most advanced piece of technology on Earth even before Coran gave her an Altean crystal for a heart, and the more time she spends Awake the more information she takes in, from the Garrison and what’s left of the internet and the data being dumped into their networks by every single extra-terrestrial refugee that lands on Earth. She has the knowledge of entire worlds in her mind, but her favorite things to learn are the things that Shiro shares, stories lovingly narrated just for her. 

Her Captain settles into his seat at Keith’s side, his data pad open to the speech he’s drafting for the ceremony the Garrison is planning, and he’s still got three days to finish working on it but she can feel the worry gathering like storm clouds in the back of his mind. She also knows how to clear them.  _ Story? _

He chuckles. “Anything in particular?”

She thinks for a moment, turns the answer she wants to give over a few times, tries to figure out how to ask a question this big. What she settles on eventually is rapid sequence of images- KeithKeithKeithKeithKeith- in the simulator breaking Shiro’s record again, wrapped in leather and perched on a hoverbike with the entire desert spread out behind him like an offering, on the bridge of the Castle with all the stars in the universe laid out in front of them, donning the Paladin armor, wrapped in the Blade suit, twirling a sword, a knife, a blaster. 

Keith chasing Shiro across galaxies and universes, Keith bruised and battered, with a fresh scar on his face, holding onto a ledge with one hand and Shiro with the other, closing his eyes as they fall together-

“...Atlas?” She huffs, or at least that’s the feeling she sends him, because somehow he still doesn’t understand what she’s asking, what story she wants to hear more than anything else. She rummages around the parts of their minds that touch, looking for the wordspicturesmemories she needs, because if he’s going to be stubborn then she will too. 

Lance and Allura with their arms wrapped around each other on the bridge and the warm feeling that grows in their chests. Hunk and Shay smiling at each other across a tray of hospital food. Scenes taken from memories that the Paladins have shared with their Lions, memories that the Lions passed on to her. 

She dives further back, reaches into Shiro’s head and pulls up a memory from a few years ago of one of the pilots that likes to greet Shiro in the halls, the two of them curled on a couch together. 

She balls the emotions up and shoves them at Shiro, lets him turn them over in his mind to puzzle out what she’s asking for.

Instead of answering her though, he freezes. She can feel the connections snapping into place, things that she thought he knew already settling into concepts that he understands. “Oh.”

She nudges him again. He sits there. 

She contacts Matt Holt.

Matt is innocently cranking away in one of the garages when his comm buzzes with a message from the Atlas. Ever since she figured out she could get the attention of anyone in the crew by messaging them directly it’s been one of her favorite things to do. 

_ The Captain requires assistance in Keith’s room. _

When he gets there Shiro is staring off into space with an expression like he’s just been beaned with a frying pan. “Shiro,” Matt puts a hand on his shoulder and gets no answer. “Dude, are you good?”

Shiro shakes, blinks, and looks up at Matt with wide eyes. “Matt, I think I’m in love with Keith.” 

Matt closes his eyes, sighs, and leaves the room, because there’s not enough money in this system to pay him to deal with this right now.

Her Captain, caught off guard by his realization, comes back to her as Matt Holt departs.

She likes Matt Holt. He gets results.

Her Captain stays in his spot at Keith’s side for another hour, staring off into space until one of his bridge crew retrieves him for a meeting.

She watches her Captain as he spends the next two days running back and forth between the Paladins and the Garrison as well as working as a liaison for the incoming coalition members. She briefly gets to experience “panic” again when a Galran shuttle trips her sensors, but it’s cut short by Shiro’s reassurances. She watches through his eyes as he approaches the docked shuttle, the way he clasps the arm of the largest Galra that steps out. 

_ Kolivan, _ he tells her.  _ He leads the Blades. _

Another Galra approaches, but before she can reach Shiro Kosmo is appearing out of thin air to greet her joyfully. There’s a brief throb of sadness through Shiro, and this time when she asks he takes a moment to answer.

_ Krolia, _ he says,  _ This is Krolia. This is Keith’s mother. _

_ The Galra really like “K” names,  _ she says back, and finally, the weight lifts just enough for Shiro to smile again.

Keith is important to her Captain and to the Lions, and so Keith is important to her. This means that Atlas decides she likes Krolia the moment she sees the gentle way she brushes Keith’s hair from his face, almost exactly the same way that Shiro had the first time he visited. 

A few moments later Atlas decides that she  _ adores  _ Krolia as she watches her herd Shiro out of the hospital room and tell him not to come back until he’s “Showered, eaten, and slept for at least 6 hours, Shiro. In that order. I will know if you don’t.”

Her Captain slinks from the room sheepishly, and very pointedly ignores her laughter at his expense. 

Back in Keith’s room, Krolia settles down with a data pad to try and catch up on the backlog of Coalition news. A notification pops up in the corner from a sender named Atlas, a message thanking her for taking care of the Captain. Krolia smiles, and gets back to work.

The morning of the ceremony, Shiro’s day starts at dawn. He’s up as soon as his alarm goes off, and after he’s ready for the day he spends ten minutes pacing in circles, muttering under his breath. He only stops when his comm starts beeping, Iverson and Sam checking in to make sure that everything is ready on his end. Shiro takes a deep breath and heads out. His back is straight and he’s wearing what Paladin Pidge refers to as his “Media Face”, but Atlas is attached to his mind, and she can see how every spare moment he gets his thoughts drift firmly Keith-wards.

Keith wakes up and everything hurts. His head hurts, his back hurts, his ribs hurt. In fact, he’s willing to bet that his  _ eyelashes  _ hurt, he just can’t sort out that one specific pain from the rest.

He drags his eyes open, despite their protests that they’d really rather stay closed, thanks, and is treated to a lovely view of a standard Garrison hospital room. 

And then-

His mom, sitting at the foot of his bed, smiling down at him. Kolivan, posted by the window, the stern expression that Keith thought lived on his face absent for once, replaced by relief. Kosmo, jumping to put his front paws on the bed, leaning in to inspect the bandage wrapped around his head, snuffling him affectionately when he reaches out the scratch behind his ears. And Shiro’s voice, confident and steady, flowing through the room, talking about hope and sacrifice and moving forward as one. Keith smiles, and slips back to sleep. 

As much as she wants to, Atlas can’t tell Shiro the moment that Keith wakes up. She waits, let’s him get through the speech he’s been so worked up about, let’s him make his way off the stage before she asks him to head towards Keith’s room. 

He takes off running, and she goes happily along for the ride. 

The next time Keith wakes up it’s night, and there’s no one else there. 

At least, that’s what he thinks, until Shiro snorts loudly in his sleep and wakes himself up. Keith snickers, thinks about reaching out, doesn’t. 

It doesn’t matter, because Shiro reaches for him a moment later, wrapping him in his arms and tucking his face into Keith’s hair. 

“I love you,” he says, and Keith’s world freezes. Shiro pulls back, just enough to cup Keith’s face in his hands, just enough to look him right in the eyes. “I love you, and I should’ve told you ages ago.”

Shiro watches as his words sink in, watches Keith’s face shift from shock to wonder. He feels as Keith’s hand tangles in his hair, as Keith tips his head forward so their foreheads meet. “I love you too.” There’s a feeling in his gut like free falling, like taking flight, like launching yourself off of a cliff on a hoverbike and knowing the wind will catch you. 

In the back of his mind the Atlas trills, a happy tune that sounds like stardust, and Shiro knows, deep down in his bones where his bond with Black used to be, with the part of his soul that connects him to the universe, that everything is going to be just fine. 

The Atlas, in her hanger and the Garrison’s computers and flowing between the Lions and watching over the Paladins and in her Captain’s head, smiles and spins and feels the bubble of happiness in Shiro’s chest. She thinks of the stars and future and the dream Shiro has about a house and a boy in the desert. She connects to the computer system, flips a switch, and then the roof of the hanger opens and starlight comes pouring down, bathing the hanger in an otherworldly glow. 

Atlas looks up and watches them shine. 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading, I hope you enjoyed! If you liked this, please consider checking out my other works for the Voltron fandom.
> 
> Remember that as a reader your feedback is an Important part of the creative process!!! Comments > than kudos but both make me weep tears of joy and other emotions!! Thank you for reading!!


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